Number of Zimbabwe elephants killed with cyanide rises to 60

HARARE, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Suspected poachers have used
cyanide to kill 23 elephants in Zimbabwe's Hwange national park,
raising the death toll there and in the northern part of the
country to 60 since late September, officials said on Thursday.

Hwange national park in western Zimbabwe currently hosts
53,000 elephants, twice the park's carrying capacity.

Park rangers recovered most of the tusks after the 23
elephants were killed with the deadly poison last Friday but
poachers got away with three tusks, officials said.

Cyanide is widely used in Zimbabwe's mining industry and is
relatively easy to obtain.

"The possibilities of trying to control this huge source of
cyanide, which is creating so much revenue for the country, is
going to be extremely difficult for us to do," said Brant
Williamson, a local conservationist told the state broadcaster.

"People have access to this awful poison and they don't
understand the devastation that it causes by putting it into one
water hole and how far that devastation reaches."

Poachers have used rifles and traps to poach Zimbabwe's
elephants over the years and started using cyanide in 2013.

Elephant conservation groups said in 2013 that as many as
300 elephants died in Hwange park after poachers laced salt pans
there with cyanide. The government strongly disputed the figure,
saying only a few dozen animals had died.

Hwange was home to Zimbabwe's most famous lion Cecil, which
was killed by an American dentist in July.
(Reporting by Mike Saburi; Writing by Nqobile Dludla; Editing
by James Macharia and Tom Heneghan)